Saturday, January 9, 2010

Melissa's new toy!

Yesterday, on the way home from training class, a friend and I stopped at Clean Run in South Hadley Massachusetts. Clean Run has gear for dogs and people for agility, obedience. Books, DVDs, treats, supplements, crates, shoes, boots, leads, toys and more toys.

This was Melissa's first visit to Clean Run. The staff is friendly, and everyone who works there loves dogs. Melissa got to see boxes being unloaded from the freight dock, she got to see orders being packaged to be mailed out. She walked on cement flooring, she walked on matting, she walked on indoor/outdoor carpeting. She met other dogs. She and her Standard Poodle buddy Kodi clearly enjoyed themselves as they walked up and down the aisles of the warehouse type building.

Did Melissa need another toy? Probably not. Did we come home with more then one new toy? Yes we did. I can't give Melissa all the hand-me-downs from the other dogs can I? OK, I admit, I had as much fun at Clean Run as Melissa did.

I have not yet introduced all the new toys to Melissa. I rotate toys. For a few days Melissa may have toys A, B and C to play with. Then those go away and I pull out toys D, E and F. The novelty of seeing a toy she hasn't seen in a week or ten days peaks her interest as it did when it was first new.

The toy of the moment is called a Bumi. I had seen one at Dogs Learning Center and really liked the soft rubber that seems to be impenetrable to dogs teeth. It is made of a material called Zogoflex. It is soft enough to be an inside toy, and yet the material stays soft in frigid temps. You can read more about it on the Clean Run website. http://www.cleanrun.com/index.cfm?

About Me

I am a certified professional dog trainer. My goal is to help you train your dog to become a long time family companion by using humane and gentle methods. Follow along as I raise a new puppy of my own.
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